Such dental measuring devices, hereinafter referred to briefly as devices, have in general been known and are used prior to or in the course of dental treatments for a three-dimensional measurement of the patient's teeth, so that the materials that will be required in the course of the treatment, by way of example crowns, inlays, bridges or implants, can be prepared on the basis of the measurement results. By way of example, measuring devices have correspondingly been known from DE 10 2007 005 726 B4, DE 10 2006 049 695 A1, DE 10 2007 005 625 A1, DE 10 2008 040 949 A1, DE 10 2007 058 859 A1, DE 10 2008 017 481 A1, DE 10 2008 040 947 A1, DE 10 2008 054 985 B4, DE 10 2008 055 158 A1, DE 10 2009 001 086 A1, DE 10 2011 077 564 A1, DE 10 2011 080 180 B4 and JP 2009-165831 A.
A dental measuring device of this type for the three-dimensional measurement of a patient's teeth has been known from DE 10 2007 054 906 B4. The known measuring device has projection means with at least one projection unit to project a measuring structure onto a tooth to be measured. In this case, the projection unit has a light source which projects a grid as a measuring structure onto the tooth to be measured.